Nigeria’s Cocoa Output Seen Falling 20% on Disease, Flood

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Cocoa output in Nigeria, the world’s
fourth-biggest producer, is forecast to fall at least 20 percent
due to disease and floods stemming from heavy rains this year,
the country’s main industry group said.

“The weather changes caused considerable damage to our
projected production,” Sayina Riman, president of the Cocoa
Association of Nigeria, said by phone yesterday from the
southwestern cocoa-trading town of Akure. There is a “high
incidence of black pod disease,” he said, adding some farms
were lost to landslide in Cross River state, the country’s
second-biggest cocoa producing region. Black pod is a fungal
disease that thrives in wet conditions.

Cocoa production is expected to be 200,000 metric tons in
2012-13. That compares with 250,000 tons the year earlier and a
September forecast of 300,000 tons, according to the
association, which represents farmers, traders and processors.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of more than 160
million, faced its worst flooding in decades this year after its
two biggest rivers, the Niger and the Benue, overflowed their
banks as dams let out water following a year of heavy rains.
Farms, homes and roads were washed away and at least 363 people
were killed and about 2 million people were displaced by floods
from July to October, according to the country’s emergency
agency.

The cocoa association is distributing pods of new cocoa
varieties to farmers to help replant affected farms, Riman said.
Nigeria introduced eight varieties of cocoa last year, which can
produce 1 to 2 tons of cocoa from each hectare (2.47 acres),
compared with the current yield of 0.45 ton a hectare, according
to the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria based in the
southwest city of Ibadan.

Main Producers

Nigeria lags behind Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia as a
cocoa producer, according to the London-based International
Cocoa Organization’s website.

Nigeria’s cocoa year is divided into two harvests, with the
main one beginning in October and ending in January, while the
smaller crop usually begins in March and ends in June.

Cocoa for March delivery fell 1.1 percent to 1,584 pounds
($2,513) a ton on NYSE Liffe by 12:30 p.m. in London. Cocoa for
March delivery was down 1.2 percent at $2,455 a ton on ICE
futures in New York.